Separating mechanisms serve, in station wagons or similar vehicles, to provide a mechanical boundary between the loading or baggage space and the passenger space. In a collision or crash, such mechanisms prevent the possibility that objects are flung out of the baggage space into the passenger space and injure or kill passengers there. For this purpose, the opening--for example between the edge above the back seat and the underneath of the inside roof lining--is closed with the separating mechanism if such a danger potentially exists.
If, however, an endangering of the occupants can be precluded with certainty because the loading height in the baggage space does not exceed the back seat height and because even in the case of a accidental collision objects slipping together cannot accumulate to the extent that they can climb over the back-seat, the separating mechanism does not need to be used. On the contrary, it is then rather troublesome.
For this reason the separating mechanism is frequently constructed in the manner of a spring-actuated roll, in which case the separating mechanism has a separating net which is wound in a housing onto a winding shaft. The winding shaft is pre-tensioned in a wind-up direction with the aid of a spring motor and, even in the case of a completely wound-up separating net, a sufficient pull-back force remains.
With a completely wound-up separating net, the bale diameter is great and the winding spring largely relaxed. As the separating net is increasingly drawn out from the housing, the bale diameter on the winding shaft diminishes, while simultaneously the winding spring generates an increasing tension.
At the end of the pulling out process, i.e. when the separating net has been drawn out of the housing to such an extent that the drawbar can be suspended into body-side receiving pockets in the car, the pull-back force has increased to such a degree that suspending the drawbar is very difficult. An unfavorable body position adds to the difficulties.